


With Your Help

by InsaneJul



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Altered Mental States, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, I guess this isn't really painful?, Memory Alteration, Memory World, Past Torture, traumatic memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: It's not entirely canon, so I guess this is AU-ish, in which Epsilon has the memories of the freelancers whose AIs he recreated (ergo Delta sharing York's memory logs). Carolina gets some good things out of having their memories...and some bad things too. Set during season 11 while Carolina and Epsilon are off hunting equipment on their own.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a big character exploration dump for like half the freelancers, and Yorkalina snuck in because it's basically my OTP. Mostly focuses on Carolina and her relationship with the freelancers and Epsilon.

Carolina has bad dreams. She has dreams of the bad one. The scary one. She isn’t in control of the memories that pop up while she’s asleep: Epsilon has given her more than a few shitty memories on top of the ones she’s already got. This time around, he’s stable, though; this time around, he cares about her and knows her mind already; this time around, he knows how to keep most of his memories safely out of her mind, especially when she’s awake. She won’t fall apart and neither will he, not like Wash, not like when he was new and raw and suffering, not like when Wash was such a child and couldn’t bear all of someone else’s pain along with his own. Carolina and Wash know how to stand pain now, and this is why she and Epsilon survive, this is why Wash is stable now, and can look at Epsilon and not resent Carolina for it. But still, sharing a mind does not come without consequences.

The Meta’s memories are the worst. Carolina sleeps restlessly, feeling completely out of control of her own body, of her own thoughts; she hears only Sigma’s, cannot tell whose is whose. She dreams of ripping out her friends’ heads, even her own, sometimes, and wakes screaming. She watches her own hands, Meta’s hands, though they are her hands now, tearing apart her family. She may have found a new family in the reds and blues, that’s certain, but she will never stop mourning the one she lost. When she has Maine’s memories, she remembers slowly losing control, losing herself; and she can feel it in the way that he could not. She wakes and blames herself for all his pain, for the loss of that man, a stable mountain, a good friend, a good soldier. Epsilon tells her that she probably could not have prevented Sigma from doing as he pleased, and everything would have ended the same. She doesn’t quite believe him (but then he doesn’t quite believe himself when he says it).

North’s memories warm her heart on cold evenings on her own. She feels his stability, his love, his gentleness, and tries to emulate it when she wakes. She dreams of purple and pink and green, of wanting a dog, of comforting a child, the familiarity of a sniper rifle in her hands and grounding herself in the pull of the trigger. She remembers fondness in her heart, fondness she has not allowed herself to feel for a long time. North wanted to find a place to belong for himself and his sister. In his memories she does not resent South in the least, pities her, loves her, wants only the best for her, and the lack of anger in her heart is relieving. She wakes up calm, collected, prepared to take on another day knowing she is capable, skilled, and rested. Epsilon likes it when she wakes up like this, and so does his little brother, also rejuvenated from the memories of his old friend.

Tex’s memories are more painful for Epsilon than they are for Carolina. She does not often dream of her for long, because Church catches himself and hides them from her once again. But sometimes he loses himself in her, and Carolina remembers the woman who was her mother but not her mother throw herself into danger headlong, enjoying it; she remembers Tex not remembering and hating herself for being unable; she remembers failing, over and over and over again. Carolina dreams of Omega telling her she wants to kill, constantly, always in her head, a voice telling her she wants to destroy. She does not want to destroy, and she argues with the voice, but Carolina has her own memories to know that Tex did not always win that argument. She wakes from these disgusted, that residual hatred in herself so difficult to eradicate, but so much more desolate. Epsilon apologizes but he cannot keep his heartbreak out of her head when she spends all night in the mind of his long-lost love. Carolina doesn’t blame him. 

Wyoming’s memories bring nostalgia. Epsilon remembers that goddamn stupid mustache more than anything, which makes Carolina sneeze in her sleep and wake up confused. She dreams of determination, much like her own, but cool, not angry; she dreams of willingness to follow orders, the way she used to, before she realized; she dreams of the ease of lying, putting aside everything she feels to get her job done. She learns the ability to sleep with one eye open and kill for cash. When she wakes from Wyoming’s memories she is often shivering, cold for a reason she cannot be quite sure of. 

York’s memories are suffocating. Epsilon and Delta do their best to keep these memories from her, since they are so often of her, but York is strong and overwhelming. He always has been. Carolina dreams of laughter and brightness, tinged with an emptiness that she never before knew he felt. She dreams of strength and power, he was always stronger than her, could probably have thrown her across a room, if he’d ever been so inclined and she’d stayed still long enough to let him. She dreams of witnessing beauty perspectiveless, of love and longing and impulsivity curbed by better judgement, duty, and respect. She dreams of running away from everything, making a new life for herself, built upon love instead of the need to escape, be the shining knight; of allowing herself to be selfish for just a moment. She wakes up crying sometimes, remembering how selfless he really was, never did a damn thing for himself and never being allowed to have anything for himself. Carolina wakes from these dreams to a shaky feeling in her shoulders that is Delta, struggling to deal with his old friend’s heavy emotions and Epsilon telling her it’s okay, it’s okay, York loved her and he would be so proud of her now.

Wash’s memories are frightening, the hardest to distinguish from her own. Epsilon feels the same, their thoughts and minds smashed together and intertwined and ripped apart again and again. Carolina has decided Wash’s memories are the most painful, for both of them, falling into a hole where she watches the young, naive man she cared for slowly turn into the stoic, hardened soldier he was never meant to be. She has his dreams, his hopes, everything he’s lost; and she dreams of a loving family, torn apart too soon. She dreams of a little boy with a bloodied face and a piece of glass sticking out of his eyebrow, tinged with seething hatred. She dreams of watching her comrades die and being pulled from the depths of despair and loss from a man who appeared so much like a benevolent angel, at the time. She dreams of teasing and hair ruffling and fondness and a fear of heights and a photograph of a cat. Then she tosses in her sleep and she remembers everything she knew being torn to pieces, a beautiful woman’s voice and face, torture too horrible for words, another man’s heartbreak, ripping his insides to shreds, forgetting what was him and what was them. She dreams of being dead while living, knowing nothing but the need for revenge. Carolina shudders because when she wakes her thoughts are still jumbled the way his were, for so long, for years; has to take several minutes to sort through Wash and herself and Epsilon and be sure whose memories are whose while Epsilon sits silently, unable to bear the barrage of his past. It is mornings like this where she comforts him, must convince him that he did not ruin Washington and that he is better now, they both are, stable and safe and loved. Church sighs and agrees and wishes they’d said goodbye, but there is no time for that now. They are already gone.

Carolina’s own memories are all ruined now, every happy moment tinged with the knowledge that she was used and abused and everyone she spoke with is gone now. Church asks her why she can’t just be happy she had good times at all, and she says it isn’t fair she’s still here and they aren’t. They were the best of the best, and they still lied and cheated and tore themselves apart. It isn’t right when she wakes up and she isn’t as tall as she thought she was, or her heart isn’t calm like it was, or her hands are skin and bone rather than metal and circuits, or her voice doesn’t have the right accent, or her sight in the left eye is perfectly good, or her thoughts are clearly distinguished from Church’s. Sometimes it takes all the strength she has not to run back to the canyon and find Wash and tell him (tell all of them, really) how sorry she is she left him, she won’t do it again, she’s the only one who understands him, he needs her and she left; but she has York’s strength now, North’s inner peace, Wyoming’s detachment, Maine’s conviction, Wash’s courage, and she can resist the urge. Carolina is sure that with their memories, however difficult it is in the night, she will make herself better, she will make things good enough; they will not let her forget what she is fighting for, what she will never stop fighting for. She will bring justice to the world, for those she loved who got none at all. Every morning she draws herself up with that strength, peace, detachment, conviction, and courage, knowing she can continue.

                                                           


End file.
